James Brown really reinvented the idea of rhythm in
American popular music, that is black music from swing through early rhythm
and blues had always been about dancing, about movement, about rhythm. But
he took his band, especially his band from the late about '67 on, took
rhythm to a whole ‘nother concept in the sense that everything became
rhythm: the horn lines weren't melodic horn lines they were like short
percussive horn lines like almost rhythm beats; the guitars instead of being
melodic or playing sort of melodic pieces, again, very percussive, it was
called chicken scratch like chh chh sounds; the bass line even the bass
which is always a percussive instrument was used in a much more choppy, more
biting kind of way. So everything became rhythm. Everything became
intensified. The only thing that really wasn't rhythm in a way was this
voice and even that was very much on point, very much on beat. So James took
the concept of groove and intensified it so that every instrument on a James
Brown recording augmented this idea of groove, everything was very
polyrhythmic going on. And once he had done that with that band it flowed
through all of American music, all American dance music.

Well. James Brown took the concept of dance music, and, and,
and reinvented it by intensifying the levels of rhythm. That is to say that,
within any James Brown recording, everything was rhythm. There was very
little melody... ah... which was amazing. There was very little harmony
outside the horn harmony. It was very much about the rhythm, about the
intensity of the groove, about the interplay... the interlocking o different
instruments. Ah... including taking things, even the horn lines, and making
them sound percussive in a way that hadn’t been done before. So, that
intensity, that idea of rhythm dominating everything, ah, was influenced,
went on to influence Sly, P-Funk, disco. So many different kinds of American
music came out of the James Brown concept of rhythm.

Interviewer:

... percussive style too. Could you talk about
that.

George:

Well no James started out as a very traditional R
and B singer, singing ballads and singing in a very style not that different
from what Sam Cooke would do like "Please, Please, Please" etc.. But as he,
as he began to evolve and the band the began to evolve, ah, they become more
like what we could call rap records in a sense. They were essentially vocal
interjections, they were vocal screams and shouts. They were like horn lines
for the most part. And the lyrics became less and less, ah, again, carrying
the melody and more about carrying rhythm. Again, much, very different from
what he had done before and what was going on in let's say Motown or even
Stax at the same time. So there was definitely that he did that no one else
had done before. And, it spoke to a certain kind of blackness, if you will,
a sort of Africanness in music that, that really hadn't been expressed in
that way before. I mean if you listen to certain music from West Africa,
bands in West Africa you hear that kind of rhythmic interplay esp.,
particularly in some of the use of the guitar parts which were very much
similar to what you hear in James Brown's recordings. So he really
instinctually took it back to the motherland, in that sense.

Well I think the thing to understand about, about this music
[Interruption].

Interviewer:

Again.

George:

I think the thing to understand about this music is
how much of it came out of touring experience and the road experience, that
is to say that this phrase on the 1, it comes out of being on the road, the
band comes in on the 1. It's a sense of we're on the road and we're in a
collective of a bunch of people with noise and sound. We always have to be
in sync about where we come in together, right. And so many of these records
that we associate with James Brown, "Give it Up or Turn it Loose" was
originally another song. But what happened is that James would, expanded the
song so that he would go - now it's time for you to do the camel walk. He
would be doing different dances and so the song expanded because James was a
great dancer. So he would do the camel walk, hully gully, all those kind of
dances were going on at that time. So the song got longer and longer till it
evolved into something else. So on the 1 is a sense of, extension of this
thing of being a live band performing in, in clubs of all kind, of places of
all kind. Those happen to be in sync they come in on the 1, so to speak. So
it really is a outgrowth of that, that sense of, of creativity on the run so
to speak for always having a place that we all can be together on and that
is on the 1.

Interviewer:

Maceo, why was he important to James?

George:

Well I may think that, what, what happened with
that particular band had been the Pee Wee Ellis band and then when Maceo
came in and then also Fred Wesley, they brought a sense of personality to
the other instrument, instruments, instrumentalists in the sense that it had
been James Brown band and, and before they came in it was the Fabulous
Flames and James. And it was really these singers and James, so to speak,
that shared the stage. Now it was the instrumentalists 'cause the band
became stronger, it became less of a R and B group when the Fabulous Flames
were there it was a lead singer James Brown, vocal harmony group with band.
Now it became lead singer and band. And so the band became the dominant
presence and not the, and not and they became less and less about
traditional melody and harmony and more about rhythm and intensification of
rhythm. And so Maceo and then Fred both stepped to the forefront to bring a
little diversity. So the groove was going and you have a solo over the
groove to give a little flavor to it also very much a jazz thing because the
music became more experimental. I mean it was really interesting 'cause it
was pop music, it was R and B music, it was commercial music but it was also
very much experimental and on the run and evolving as it went along. So I'm
sure Maceo hardly ever played exactly the same solo twice. You know and even
when you would listen to the records, ah, ah, you think they're cut in the
studio, they sound like live recordings. I mean there's very little over
dubbing that you can tell, I mean it's like ___ the flow and people are
talking you can hear people back talk on the records. So a sense of a
community of a band that has a personality. And that's what Maceo sort of
brought, he gave another texture in the way that almost a voice would
instead of having a feature vocalist he had a featured soloist.

Interviewer:

When we talk about funk which is what this music
began to be labeled for James. What is it?

George:

Well there's a lot of different ways to, to go
about seeing, I mean funk or funky is always going back to the fifties,
[sirens] always represented something that was a little more polyrhythmic, a
little bit more down home. Soul music was very much influenced by church
music, right. Funk was not as, was not as much church music was a really
turn away from gospel, R and B to something that was a little bit more
secular and with some jazz in it but also something very original, something
just spoke to that particular time. Ah, so funk comes out of a, a very
southern thing as well. I mean blues was very funky when you look back on
it, what we would call, very rootsy, very much Brown. I mean he's a Georgia
boy. He comes from a, a part of America in which black folks were called
‘bama, he, he was a ‘bama, James Brown was definitely a ‘bama and it was
‘bama music and it spoke to a lot of the roots of the community because ___
is kept, you know. Most black folks are ‘bamas. Most black folks are from
the country. Most black folks come from that country aesthetic. And he
tapped into that in a way that no one had really done quite the way he did
it and there were, there were imitators, there were people who were peers of
his, who were very strong, had a little bit of that same flavor like a Otis
Redding. But they were more song oriented and James became this other thing
which wasn't song oriented, which was totally groove oriented.

Interviewer:

How important is the groove to black
folks?

George:

Well, ah, it, it's funny. Groove is everything. I
mean groove is, ah, you can't make love without a groove. I mean it's all
about interlocking rhythms, if you will. You know what I'm saying. So James
Brown took the concept of groove, I mean black folks have been to swing
music, Motown had a certain kind of beat, a rhythm but there was something
very sexual about what James Brown did. I mean a funny thing was there's
these stories that are told about how, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson and James
Brown were like rivals. They were like the kings of R and B coming out of
the early sixties. And as the story goes because Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke
were supposed to be prettier, quote, unquote prettier that they would get,
you know they would snap on James Brown 'cause he had his ‘bama blah blah
blah. But, ah, as James evolved he became the man. His band became the man.
It became, he became the king in a way that after Sam died and Jackie
couldn't keep up. So he really outstripped everybody and he went back by
being, going back to the root. Where Sam had been very smooth and even, you
know and Jackie had gone in the Vegas thing. Sam, I mean James Brown stayed
true to a certainly kind of rootsiness. And that made him more sexual. That
made him more, his music so much more groove oriented, more flavorful that
way.

Interviewer:

Go ahead.

George:

A key thing to understand about James Brown is that
he was a touring band and by, meaning he was on the road, he went to
different cities all the time, he saw how people were dancing around the
country and he was a great dancer in his own right. So he was constantly
aware of making his rhythms fit whatever dance was going on. Ah, he would go
to Georgia, he would be in Detroit, he would be in Memphis and he would see
they are moving this way. And he would correspond, okay, this is a dance
that's coming out, I need to be on top of this. What rhythm would work with
this dance? So, so much of black popular music has historically been about
dance music but it's about the interplay between the dancer and the
musicians. That is it goes back and forth.

Interviewer:

Pick up.

George:

So much of it is, is literally a dance because what
happens usually is a new dance comes out pegged to a certain kind of beat.
Musicians hear that and go, okay, we need to make records that respond to
this beat or musicians come out with a certain kind of groove and that
groove becomes so popular that dancers respond to that groove with certain
movements. So it goes back and forth this, this interplay between the
community of dancers, the audience, and that of the musicians who actually
make the music. Ahm, and they go back and forth, they watch each other so to
speak. I mean so many, ah, the idea, I know a lot of musicians when they
have a new record they go to certain clubs and test, they get a test
pressing or an advanced cassette to see how dancers respond to it. So and
James Brown because he was the great, he was the best touring band. He
worked constantly. I mean he was always on the road. He was constantly on
top of the latest movements in terms of dance and the community. And so
musically he'd respond to that. That's one reason he so many singles out. He
was a guy who really made records that responded to what he saw in front of
him when he played the Apollo or the Howard or the Uptown, whichever venue
he was at. So, black music, black dancers, black audience all kind of in a
mix. You can't distance the artist from the community, ah, because that
usually results in the artist losing step. And James Brown was in step with
black America for almost ten years or so which is an amazing amount of time
for any artist to be right on tune. I mean he was right there until like at
least 1973 and the guy's career starts back in the fifties. So he had an
amazing run of being right there where the community was musically, where
the community was dance-wise and, and that's very extraordinary.

Interviewer:

How about ... socially?

George:

Well again, I mean part of, part of what happened
is a, is several things: one that James was sort of a megalomanic, had a
very high sense of himself and a high sense of where he belonged in black
America. And that's part of, you know, most leaders. He had a sense of
himself as this leader. That led him to also, you tied it in with the fact
that he was very sensitive what was going on in the community in terms of
grass roots and the feeling that the two things led him toward being more
political. Ah, a funny story "Say it Loud I'm Black and I'm Proud" while
very successful also some people say that it also damaged him down the road
because there might have been a lot of people who resented this overtly
pro-black statement from him. And it may have hurt him in the long run in
terms of his record sales. I mean who knows for sure? But certainly "Say it
Loud I'm Black and I'm Proud" was a major statement coming from a major
artist at that time, ____"Soul Brother Number One". And for a while there
James Brown represented, you know, what black people were into at that
moment, whatever. In a strange way with Michael Jackson represented at one
point in his career about black crossover and about black mass acceptance,
James Brown represented in 1968, '69, '70, '71 about a certain kind of
pride. I mean he went from, when he went from the process to the Afro that
was major, that was a major, major thing because it represented a change
'cause he was so symbolic 'cause he had a process for years. He had a really
elaborate do, his stuff was done. So when he went from a process to Afro it
was like, for anybody who was still wearing the process, he would just oh,
he would just like, you're just a retrograde backwards Negro. It was time to
be black. And when James Brown got the Afro that just said everything that
needed to be said.

Interviewer:

Could you give something with the king of black
America.

George:

See, I never heard that phrase before.

Interviewer:

It's in your book.

George:

I may have made it up though. I don't know.
Etc..

Yeah part of, part of the leadership thing
is that he was a leader on a lot of levels. I mean he was one of the first
black entertainers to have his own radio stations. There was actually, ah,
ah, there was, I don't think he had bread but he had some other kinds of,
you know he had like thing, James Brown this, James Brown that, godfather of
soul this, soul brother number one that. He was, he was known to be a really
sharp businessman. He was a very, had a lot more control of his career than
most black artists did at that time. His acquisition of his radio station is
very symbolic of black control and power. The fact that, you know, he was
involved in endorsing Hubert Humphrey was a big deal at the time. The fact
that when the riot happened after King's death his broadcast, his show was
broadcast live from Boston Garden as a way to keep people calm during that
time. I mean he was perceived in a way in terms of his political, social
impact, ah, that very artists ever had that kind of clout, very few black
artists certainly. To be perceived as someone who could stop people from
rioting is another level of the game. And you got to remember that was a
time when you had black mayors for the first time, had a lot of sense of
moving forward. And he was part of that, his music was part of that 'cause
it was so black. I mean when people were starting to criticize Motown saying
they were too soft or they were too Las Vegas couldn't be said about James
Brown. James Brown came right from the root and he spoke to every brother on
the corner. I mean the fact that the connection can be made between hip hop
music today and James Brown's music, the sampling is in the same, it affects
the same thing. Rap music in the nineties, eighties spoke to a certain
person in the community very, very directly. It reached outside but there
was a group of people who really felt this and James Brown was that for that
particular time in the late sixties or early seventies he was the guy who
spoke to the brother on the corner and the sister on the corner for that
matter.

Interviewer:

Could you tell me about how Motown was afraid to be
up front.

George:

Well see I don't think, I mean I don't know if
Motown was afraid. They had certain records that, that, I mean they had
rec., Motown is a lot .

Interviewer:

I actually have Berry Gordy saying how ___ going
on

What did Bootsy bring to James?

George:

Well I think Bootsy at that time, you know, brought
youth. He brought new energy. He brought another way of hearing. Ah, I mean
the thing that makes a great musician is, I mean there's a lot of people who
can technically play and you always find guys, sessions musicians who can
play very well and do commercial jingles, whatever. The guys who stick out
are people who hear different, who hear, who can play but hear the way the
music should be put together differently. And, ah, what they call the new
breed. Bootsy brought this kind of way of hearing that was very radically
different, not radially different but significantly different from what
James was doing before enough to push him to another place that maybe James
has been going to as well. But the Bootsy really, oh, he can play this stuff
and he makes it work. Ahm, it's a way of hearing. He just heard music
differently, the way he heard percussion, the way he heard bass line, the
way he heard the way the bass interplays with a drum, the way it interplays
with a guitar, ah, was in keeping with where James was going and he, but his
own way of hearing along with what Fred was doing along with what Maceo
heard along with what James Brown heard, took it to a whole ‘nother
place.

Interviewer:

Talk about "Sex Machine".

George:

Well for me I first heard "Sex Machine" in a summer
school in the cafeteria of summer school. No one wanted to be there in the
first place and this record came on in the cafeteria and everyone was just
going berserk, there was just some other kind of energy un., unleashed. And
the difference between pre "Sex Machine" James Brown and post is simply,
part of it is just young energy. There was a new energy in the community,
the nationalists were coming in there was a whole ‘nother kind of aggressive
black thing that was happening and that music was right there on the point
of it 'cause he had a new band, he had young guys who had this new energy
that was different from what happened before. If James moved differently
it's because literally the grooves were different and like we, we've been
talking, dancing, groove, they all interplay. As the musicians changed, as
the mood changes, the dancing changes, ah. And so the, the grooves then were
much more, I mean this intensifies, it's intensification of rhythm that we
had talk that James had been evolving into really was hit right here. And
the new band really brought the noise, again, I think the youth has a lot to
do with it and I think it changes, it's like any great artist, I mean you
notice that over time they, at some point the evolutionary moves they make.
Miles Davis is, was a great example, as a, you know as a peer of James
Brown. You can see the moves in Miles's evolution through the people in the
band and James Brown was very, very similar. And one of the reasons that
James Brown managed to stay on top of the game for like ten years or so was
precisely, precisely because he was sensitive to the mood changes and was
able to articulate them musically. I mean it's one thing to know there's a
change going on, another thing to be able to find a, a vocabulary that
speaks to that change. And that's what the band with Bootsy and that whole
new breed band did for him.

I mean during that
period of, of '67, '68 into that era there was a lot of great bands. There
was the Bar-Kays and the MGs, Ted, Joe Tex __ had a great band but what was
going on in black music they were the, James Brown band was the band that
everyone held up as the standard. Guys would hang outside the places they
played, the Howard Theater, whatever, with their instruments to audition for
whatever town they went to 'cause they were the key band to be and they were
the guys. They, they were the sharpest, they moved the best and they played
the best.